Ken Nagel thought it would be no problem to hire his daughter at his Phoenix restaurant. He had not considered that Arizona’s new employment verification system, E-Verify, would deem her ineligible to work. E-Verify, which attempts to screen out unauthorized immigrants by checking employees against federal databases, failed his daughter, a U.S. citizen. “It was just another frustration,” Nagel told The Arizona Republic.

Despite its problems, Congress and the president will consider a national E-Verify mandate in immigration reform proposals this spring. President Obama called for “a system to give employers a reliable way to verify that their employees are here legally.” But E-Verify is not reliable and shifts enforcement costs onto citizens.

According to E-Verify’s government audit, a national mandate would deem 1.2 million to 3.5 million legal employees, like Ken Nagel’s daughter, initially ineligible to work. In 2008, Intel, the computer chip maker, put its new employees through E-Verify and 12 percent were declared ineligible. A firm representative told officials that resolving the errors took a “significant investment of time and money, lost productivity and many hours of confusion, worry and upset.” Read more...